Recycled

There is another new term for recycled that sort of means the same thing, re-purposed. Taking something and using it in a new way. Hmmmm. Well the prompt here for the Art Journal 52. 2014 used recycled. I found an old mono print from my "man of blue" series that just never seemed to be finished or framed. I began by adding some black ink lines and some white lines. I liked what was happening. I thought it would be fine to put on this journal page.

A detail of the page shows this little mono print which is about a 4 inch round. It was just what I needed to begin my page.

The man of blue was somehow entangled with a unicorn! I decided to end that experiment there. I had some other objects gathered for my recycled page. There is a piece with a quote from a box of tea, a round gold closure from an old note card, a bit of a printed article and some card crafting ephemera (a scallop punched item and a key stamp).

I set off using an acrylic blue to get the background on the page started and then added the darker blue spots. As I moved on I added the gold circle and the eye like image appeared so I developed that. I just kept adding paint. I felt it needed something. Yellow. That was it. I thought the print would pop more with some yellow along the one edge. Then I glued the print on to the page. The edges of the print were not glued so the key stamped paper and the one with the words could be tucked under a bit. More yellow went in the upper left corner to balance things out and the tea box fit just perfect. At that point the eye did not look finished so I added  a yellow ring around the gold the lavender ring around the eye and some ink lines.  It was just about finished when I put the little white dots on the lavender ring and blue dots. I think the key to some meaning may be in the eye........comments?

Just Another Sun

I try to make cards for each of my three sons summer birthdays . Since I had gotten into stamping, each year the card has been using a sun stamp. A sun for my sons!

This year I decided to make a small lino-cut and use that for my image. We had a lino-cut workshop led by Erin Nolan at a KVAL (Kishwaukee Valley Art League) workshop June 10th. I was able to pull an artist proof to use for the first of the three summer birthdays. For Bob’s June 15th birthday card I used the first artist proof done using Stamping Up eggplant colored ink.

July 16th and August 18th are the next two son’s birthdays. I will probably edition this fine art print by then or make mono-prints and probably do each one a little differently. Doing this little 3” X 5” print reminds me how much I love printing. I have another block ready to be cut. Watch for the next one. More sunflowers are waiting to emerge on my canvas too. Doing art on a regular basis is reaching a goal.

Two at Exhibit

"Sunflower From Sue" and " Two Sunflowers From Sue's" were shown at The Next Picture Show Gallery in Dixon, Illinois during the month of April. This week the two pictures have moved to a display with Kishwaukee Valley Art League at Boarders Book Store in DeKalb, Illinois. There will be an opening reception May 9th from 5 pm to store closing.

Note the look for each one is slightly different. "Two Sunflowers..." was
done with a traditional umber under painting, while "Sunflower from Sue" was done using a warm toned red and yellow under painting. Similar, but different.

Now there are Two

Sunflowers have finally gotten into my artwork. The picture posted is the beginning stage of another sunflower composition. I love my digital camera for documenting the process or stages that the work goes through. It gives me ideas for other paintings to come. Actually, sunflowers have been in my mind for over 10 years. There is no accounting for when an idea with take form. This one is called “Two Sunflower’s from Sue's” The painting is 10” X 16”, but love to get it into a larger size. Time will tell.